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CHAPTER 1
What Is Project Management?
Project Management Concepts and Methodologies
Joan Knutson, PMP Francis M. Webster Jr., PhD
What do Wall Street and Main Street have in common? Both measure success relative to speed, quality, and teamwork. Growing behemoths and smaller emerging concerns tout project management as a vehicle to success. They use project management to plan and manage enterprise initiatives that generate revenue or contain costs. Those who compete to sell products or services use project management to differentiate themselves by creating a product of higher quality than that of their competitors and getting it to market sooner.
Project management is recognized as a necessary discipline within corporations and governmental agencies. The planning, organizing, and tracking of projects are recognized as core competencies by for-profit and nonprofit organizations of any size.
Projects are mini-enterprises, and each project is a crucial microcosm of any business or organization. You may not be an entrepreneur, but as a project manager you are an "intrapreneur." Think about it: projects consume money and create benefits. Consider the percentage of your organization's dollars that are invested in projects, and the amount of your organization's bottom line generated through projects.
PROJECTS: THE WORK
Pharmaceuticals, aerospace, construction, and information technology are industries that operate on a project basis, and all are notable for developments that have changed the way we live and work. But not all projects are of such magnitude. A community fundraising or political campaign, the development of a new product, creating an advertising program, and training the sales and support staff to service a product effectively are also projects. Indeed, it is probable that most executives spend more of their time planning and monitoring changes in their organizations — that is, projects — than they do in maintaining the status quo.
All of these descriptions focus on a few key notions. Projects involve change — the creation of something new or different — and they have a beginning and an ending. Indeed, these are the characteristics of a project that are embodied in the definition of project found in A Guide to the Project Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide, sixth edition) published by the Project Management Institute (PMI): A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. 1 This definition, although useful to project managers, may not be sufficient to distinguish projects from other undertakings. Understanding some of the characteristics of projects and comparing projects to other types of undertakings may give a clearer perspective.
Some Characteristics of Projects
* Projects are unique undertakings that result in a single unit of output. The installation of an entertainment center by a homeowner, with the help of a few friends, is a project. The objective is to complete the installation and enjoy the product of the effort. It is a unique undertaking because the homeowner is not likely to repeat this process frequently.
* Projects are composed of interdependent activities. Projects are made up of activities. Consistent with the definition of a project, an activity has a beginning and an end. Activities are interrelated in one of three possible ways. In some situations, one activity must be completed before another can begin. Generally, these mandatory relationships are difficult to violate, or to do so just does not make sense. The relationship of other activities is not as obvious or as restrictive. These more discretionary interdependencies are based on the preferences of the people developing the plan. Some activities are dependent on some external event, such as receiving the materials from the vendor. In any of these three instances, mandatory, discretionary, or external, activities have a relationship one to another.
* Projects create a quality deliverable. Each project creates its own deliverable(s), which must meet standards of performance criteria. That is, each deliverable from every project must be quality controlled. If the deliverable does not meet its quantifiable quality criteria, that project cannot be considered complete.
* Projects involve multiple resources, both human and nonhuman, which require close coordination. Generally there are a variety of resources, each with its own unique technologies, skills, and traits. This aspect, in human resources, leads to an inherent characteristic of projects: conflict. There is conflict among resources as to their concepts, approaches, theories, techniques, and so on. In addition, there is conflict for resources as to quantity, timing, and specific assignments. Thus, a project manager must be skilled in managing such conflicts.
* Projects are not synonymous with the products of the project. For some people, the word project refers to the planning and controlling of the effort. For others, it means the unique activities required to create the product of the project. This is not a trivial distinction, as both entities have characteristics specific to themselves. The names of some of these characteristics apply to both. For example, the life cycle cost of a product includes the cost of creating it (a project), the cost of operating it (not a project), the cost of major repairs or refurbishing (typically done as new projects), and the cost of dismantling it (often a project, if done at all). The project cost of creating the product is generally a relatively small proportion of the life cycle cost of the product.
* Projects are driven by competing constraints. These competing constraints represent a balance of scope, quality, schedule, budget, resources, and risks, among other factors. One of these constraints is the driving or gating factor of each project. Different projects may be driven by a different constraint, depending on the emphasis established by management. Being first in the market often determines long-term market position, thus creating time pressure as the major driver. Most projects require the investment of considerable money and labor before the benefits of the resulting product can be enjoyed. Thus, containing resource expenditures may be the driving factor. A need exists for the resulting product of the project to be of the highest quality, as, for example, with a new system within the healthcare industry.
In summary, projects consist of activities, which have interrelationships among one another, produce quality-approved deliverables, and involve multiple resources. Projects are not synonymous with products. During the life cycle of any product, the concept of project management is used, whereas, at other times, product or operations management is appropriate. Finally, how projects are managed is determined by which of the competing project constraints is the driving force.
A Crucial Factor That Influences Project Work
As one of the characteristics above stated, the work to create the product (the development life cycle) and the work to manage the project that creates the product are different. However, a project life cycle often integrates work efforts to accomplish both. A development life cycle defines the activities to create the product. While the project life cycle not only consists of the development life cycle but also designates other activities to plan and control work being performed to create the product. The work efforts related to creating the product might be Design It, Build It, Quality Assure It, and Ship It, whereas the processes to manage the project might be Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing.
The activities to create the product are specific to the industry and to the product being created. In other words, the pharmaceutical product life cycle is very different from the software development life cycle. Yet the other activities to plan and control work being performed could be used to organize and monitor either the pharmaceutical or the software product creation.
Different Approaches to Conducting a Project Life Cycle
There are two different approaches to implementing a project life cycle. The traditional approach is called the Predictive life cycle. With more emphasis on faster release of the product, Adaptive life cycles need to be considered. Adaptive life cycles are agile, iterative, or incremental.
* Predictive. A form of project life cycle in which the project scope, time, and cost are determined in the early phases of the life cycle. Traditionally, the product life cycle is decomposed into phases or stages, such as the example above. Each phase is performed, completed, and approved during a Phase Review effort, and then the next phase begins. This technique is called the predictive, or waterfall, life cycle. The planning and controlling works in sync with the product life cycle. Each phase of the product life cycle (for example, the design phase) would be planned, executed, controlled, and possibly closed out before the build phase begins. In other words, the work efforts to produce the product would be performed serially and only once. The efforts to project-manage would be repeated for each sequential phase of the product life cycle.
* Adaptive. With time-to-market or time-to-money being more and more important, the above sequential techniques are ineffective. Therefore, iterative, incremental, and agile approaches are considered Adaptive. It is recognized that a phase of the product process might be revisited — for example, if something was discovered during the design phase that necessitated going back and revising the specifications created in the requirements phase. The traditional waterfall can be modified slightly. This modification of the waterfall is called a spiral, or an iterative, approach. In the iterative life cycle, the project scope is generally determined early in the project life cycle, but time and cost estimates are routinely modified as the project team's understanding of the product increases. Iterations develop the product through a series of repeated cycles, while increments successively add to the functionality of the product.
Relative to the project management efforts, the upcoming phase is planned and managed at a very detailed level, whereas the later phases are planned at a lesser level of detail until more information is gained, which justifies a detailed planning effort. This type of project management effort is referred to as the rolling wave, or the phased approach to project management.
* Incremental. Approaches such as incremental builds and prototyping have emerged. In the incremental life cycle, the deliverable is produced through a series of iterations that successively add functionality within a predetermined time frame. The deliverable contains the necessary and sufficient capability to be considered complete only after the final iteration. For example, a prototype (a working model) is produced. The customers play with it, modifying/adding/deleting specifications, until the product is the way that they want it. Only then is the product officially released to be used by the entire customer community.
* Agile. Still not fast enough? Deliverable-driven and time-boxed efforts, called agile, become the basic premises for those projects that are needed faster (cheaper) and more reactive to changes during development. Agile suggests creating a minimally functional product and releasing it. Even before it is in the customer's hands, more features and functions are being added for the next release.
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Excerpted from "The AMA Handbook of Project Management"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Paul C. Dinsmore and Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin.
Excerpted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
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